Afghanistan's ultra-orthodox Taliban regime publicly executed two women and flogged a dozen others convicted of adultery in the southern city of Kandahar, the official Radio Shariat said Saturday.

It said the women, Wasila and Shogufa, were executed on Friday at a sports ground in Kandahar, the headquarters of the ruling militia, charged with committing the "heinous act of adultery corrupting the society."

The radio did not say how the women were executed but the Taliban have in the past punished people convicted of adultery by stoning them to death.

The broadcast said the Taliban supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar approved the sentences awarded earlier by local courts.

It said 12 others, including two women -- Ghotai and Aiesha -- received 39 lashes each.

The lashes were administered all over their bodies in the dusty soccer ground packed with thousands of residents and Taliban officials, it said.

The 12 convicts will undergo jail terms ranging from six months to 10 years.

Ghotai and Aiesha have also been sentenced two and 10 years respectively. Three local men were given five years imprisonment each.

Seven other men were sentenced to jail terms from six months to six years.

The Taliban militia which sprang from Koranic schools in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan in 1994, has enforced its strict interpretation of the Islamic Sharia law.

The Taliban, holding 90 percent of the country, execute murderers, chop off limbs of thieves and stone married adulterers to death.

Women in the Taliban-held areas have been barred from attending schools or outdoor jobs and ordered to be fully covered from head to toe while in public -- KABUL (AFP)